The Epic WY/MT/CO Adventure!!

Seals pfff haha

 

I need to replace both my inner boots someday... Maybe They'll last another year or two, as they are only leaking right now.

 

or you could just replace the boot...10 bucks. done

 

I'm sure he will s he then has a spare cv.

Unlike some people...

 

lurking leg 3! any better idea on trails since OP? sorry, if i knew how to read, then i'd go through all 165 pages and check myself...

 

I only have one for my passenger side I had money for only one and flipped a coin. At least I have that and some TRE

 

Just FYI... Passenger and drivers CV axles are identical. You could pull both out right now and flip them around and they will still work. haha

I went to NAPA to swap my broken one for a new one and they asked whether I wanted passenger or driver and I said, "it doesn't matter because they are the same" the person looked at the screen for a sec and then said, "Oh yeah you are right, they both have the same product number".

 

if those are still OEM CV's I would do it ASAP. OEM's are much stronger and harder to come by than the other CV's.

 

Oh cool. Same thing happened to me and the guy at the counter said on most vehicles one was longer than the other. Well I feel better about having the one then. Thanks.

 

Yea I think blackbear, Imogene, engineer, Poughkeepsie. Give or take. We still haven't ironed them out n probably won't till middle of leg 1 of 2

Hha no worries they are the exact same on both sides.

 

well looks like andy is a no go now. mother in law got really sick and needed surgery and she cant come down to watch the kids while hes gone

 

Oh man, feel bad for andy. I know he was really looking forward to this trip.

 

damn...that totally sucks. I really wanted to meet him. By,,ER about his mother in law

 

i will make sure to show him many pics and tell many stories and make him really jelly

 

Just started reading a book named "Colorado Backroads and 4WD Trails". It lists 20 "trails" in the Ouray-Silverton-Ophir-Telluride area. Of those 20, 4 are listed in red, meaning the auther, Charles A. Wells, rates them as difficult. I'm pretty sure we will want to explore all 4 of those. They are, in no particular order, Black Bear Pass, Governor Basin, Poughkeepsie Gulch and Mineral Creek.

Also in our discussions we have talked about doing Imogene Pass, Engineer Pass, Cinnamon Pass, Ophir Pass and Yankee Boy Basin. All of these trails are marked in blue in this book and are considered Moderate by the author.

If all goes as planned on leg 2 and we finish on time and without drama, we expect to arrive in Ouray on Sunday, the 11th at around noon. This will give us 4 full days to explore all of these passes and trails with Thursday evening, the 15th being our last night in CO.

Monte and I and Ben and the others making this trek to Ouray will most likely finalize (as much as possible) our plans for leg 3, around the campfires of leg 1 and 2.

We are certainly interested in input from anyone coming to join us on leg 3, especially if you have done any of these trails previously.

 

Well said.

I am also confident that we will be able to easily hammer out 2-3 trails/passes a day.

A friend told me you can do all of the loop in less then 3 days if you drive on the harder pace if things. We won't be that heavy paced. But I'm sure we will make good time on some trails and not so good on others. I'm confident we can see pretty much all the trails.

We just need to figure out an order for the stuff we REALLY want to hit and try and make a route that ties them all together well. Then hit other stuff if we have time.

 

Yeah, hence the book.

For example, Yankee Boy Basin trail (blue) starts right at the south end of Ouray and Governor Basin trail (red) branches off of it as does Imogene Pass (blue) which goes to Telluride and from there we can go to Ophir Pass (blue) and on to Silverton. I would guess that is a day and a half right there.

 

I don't know what's up with Wells lately, usually his guides are pretty good. Poughkeepsie is the only "difficult" trail of the main "named" trails, that's all there is to it. Black Bear is all pucker factor and everyone that runs it, as far as difficulty, says something to the effect of "That was it?".

There really is only one efficient "day plan" in the area as far as not back tracking to much or "way out of the way" pavement connections. This is the Black Bear/Imogene combo. Because BB is one way into Telluride, the only logical choice is to combine it with Imogene. There is good camping at the end and you will be set up for Governors Basin and Yankee Boy. Go back to post #1712 for a more detailed description and be aware that many of the old mining claims on the Ouray side of Imogene are coming back to life.
All the above makes Ophir kind of pointless, it is more of a road than a trail anyway.

The beginning of Mineral Creek to Poughkeepsie and up to Hurricane pass sets you up for several more options that could all end up in Silverton in a day. Because you want to go "up" Poughkeepsie this is another "only choice" sort of thing. A few miles in or even up Poughkeepsie a tad would also be a great finish to your first/arrival day.
There is lots to see and explore between Hurricane and Sliverton. With just a minor back track from Silverton, on a high speed gravel road, you can be set up for Engineer, Animas Forks and the not to be missed Mineral point spur while doing the remainder of Mineral creek that was missed by turning off it to Poughkeepsie earlier.

I would be happy to share my GPS tracks If I could figure out how to post them. They are all Garmin and in the Garmin Mapsource format. Might have to email them.

Of course this is all mute if the place is on fire.

 

I could make some maps in my spare time with those GPS tracks seeing as I make maps for a living Also Dirty Pool I've got family in Grand Junkie/Fruita, I'll have to look you up next time i'm down there!

 

Great info. Thanks a ton

And ya what's the fire report like down there??

And could you inform me as to camping stuff? Like is it just on the trail??

I wonder if my dads GPS is garmin..